reviews - Jewish Book Council

JUDAISM: A WAY
OF BEING
David Gelernter
Yale University Press, 2009. 248 pp. $26.00
ISBN: 978-0-300-15192-3
Despite the fact that Judaism has survived
three thousand years—“the senior
nation of the Western world”—today American
Jews are fast disappearing. David Gelernter
believes the reason is that most Jews see a
fractured Judaism—a set of rituals, a history, a
culture—and fail to grasp the grand scheme
and underlying ideas of Judaism. In this brief
but intellectually packed book, Gelernter
attempts to present Judaism as a total structure,
to begin a Torat ha-lev, the Torah of the
mind and heart that can lead to understanding
the pressing questions of human existence.
A professor of computer science at Yale,
Gelernter is also an artist, novelist, and contributing
editor to the Weekly Standard. He
brings to this deeply felt book the full impact
of his understanding of literature, science, art,
philosophy, and Christianity as well as his
broad knowledge of Judaism.
To view Judaism from different angles,
Gelernter identifies four theme-images to
explain some of the issues that contemporary
Jews may find distant or archaic. The theme
of “separation” addresses the intricacies of
halakha. “The veil” explains how to experience
an indescribable and abstract God. “Perfect
asymmetry” describes the relationship of
men and women, family and sexuality, and
“inward pilgrimage” wrestles with the problem
of evil and a just and merciful God.
Through these themes, which Gelernter
paints in vivid and poetic language, he presents
a multilayered picture of Judaism. Image
is laid on image—the veil is the tallit that
allows the wearer to feel God and is also the
curtain behind which the transcendent dwells,
as God dwelled in the Temple’s Holy of
Holies; it is the wedding veil; it is the reverse
side of the mezuzah scroll on which Shaddai is
inscribed. And so with Gelernter’s three other
images; they embrace, enfold, and unravel layers
of biblical, literary, and midrashic reference,
each layer offering another view and
entry into Judaism. Inner pilgrimage, the final
www.jewishbookcouncil.org
Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice
image, is a moving and intellectually exalted
vision of each individual’s struggle to the
place, deep within your mind, where you will
meet yourself and your God.
Challenging, often exhilarating, richly
learned, intensely personal, and tough-minded,
Judaism offers a passionate picture of
Judaism. This said, the Judaism that Gelernter
describes is not one that all Jews will recognize.
For him normative Judaism is Orthodox
Judaism. This definition throws up
stumbling blocks for many practicing non-
Orthodox Jews in United States. With the
statement “‘female rabbi’ and Jewish law are
mutually exclusive,” he disenfranchises large
numbers of Jews; references to the Lord and
man, rather than human being, undercut his
assertion of the asymmetric but equal role of
women in Judaism. Concepts of community
and social justice, vital to many Jews, have no
mention in Gelernter’s Judaism.
In Gelernter’s desire to address both Jews
and non-Jews, Judaism requires no knowledge
of Hebrew or Judaism. MLW
THERE SHALL
BE NO NEEDY:
PURSUING SOCIAL
JUSTICE THROUGH
JEWISH LAW AND
TRADITION
Rabbi Jill Jacobs
Jewish Lights Publishing, 2009. 257 pp. $ 21.99
ISBN: 978-1-58023-394-1
The author provides a wonderful perspective
on the roots of social justice in
Judaism and focuses on the implications for
us in the way we live our lives in modern society.
Beginning with a comprehensive
overview of traditional Jewish text, she provides
the foundation for understanding our
obligation to make the world a better place.
In subsequent chapters Rabbi Jacobs focuses
on specific subject areas that impact all of us
in our daily lives, including such issues as
poverty, employer-employee relations, housing
and the homeless, health care, environment,
and rehabilitation. In the final chapter
she brings everything together by suggesting
how the Jewish community can play an
important role by participating in public life
in the United States.
Rabbi Jacobs’ writing is clear and concise
and she presents the text in a way that enables
one not only to learn with her but to want to
know more of what she is discussing. This is
a particularly inspiring book that may lead
readers to become active in their local communities
and even become involved in broader
movements to improve American society.
Glossary, index, list of recommended books
for further reading. SGD
Norman Podhoretz
Doubleday, 2009. 337 pp. $27.00
ISBN: 978-0-385-52919-8
REVIEWS
WHY ARE JEWS
LIBERALS?
Norman Podhoretz, the venerable neoconservative
pundit who served as editor
of Commentary magazine for 35 years,
explores in his latest book the question of
why Jews continue to be overwhelmingly
associated with liberal ideas and organizations,
despite the fact that, in his view, such
associations are not in their best interests. The
first half of the book is devoted to a historical
review, beginning with the birth of Christianity,
unambiguously illustrating how anti-
Semitism had been historically linked with
right-wing politics in the West, resulting in
explores...question of why Jews continue
to be...associated with liberal ideas and
organizations, despite the fact that...such
associations are not in their best interests.
Jews continually gravitating to liberal groups
and social movements. However, Podhoretz
argues that in light of the radicalization of the
left in the United States over the course of the
last 40 years, accompanied by the right’s
adopting positions that appear to be more in
line with Jewish concerns, including Israel’s
security and stable family values, it is difficult
to understand why the majority of Jews have
not more profoundly shifted their political
allegiances. The question of the intrinsic
nature of Jewish political perspectives appears
to be more powerfully posed than the answers
that the author tentatively offers, and to
which only the last 30 pages of the book are
devoted. This is a topic that deserves continued
research and reflection. JB
Spring 5770/2010 Jewish Book World 43